Is it best to use an ATM strategy or regular strategy

[cre8able]

Before I start working on my strategy, can you tell me which type of trade it's best to use.

After the strategy places the trade, I want to be able to drag and drop my stops and targets just like I do after I place a manual ATM strategy.

Does it make any difference whether I place a direct trade specifying my stop and target in the strategy, or use the ATM strategy to place the trade?

thanks

[rockmanx00]

If you want something static, then SetStopLoss and SetProfitTarget can be used. If you want to be able to adjust them, that is possible too. You would just need to code it. Keep in mind, your strategy has no control over manual trades that you set. It can only control trades taken as part of that strategy. Building a strategy in strategy builder has it's limits, but unlocking the code and coding it yourself, while potentially more advanced gives you more options. It all comes down to what your strategy is and what is required of it.

[NinjaTrader_Gaby]

Hello cre8able,

Thank you for your post.

Both can achieve the same thing (ATM Strategies or using order methods with IsLiveUntilCancelled set to true), both ways would allow you to manually modify the orders.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you place the trades via an ATM strategy then you wouldn't be able to track any strategy performance (since the strategy itself is not placing the trades) and you would not be able to backtest it in the Strategy Analyzer.

While we can't recommend one over the other (this is up to the discretion of the developer and their goals), this thread will remain open for any users who want to provide their own feedback.

[KingJTrader]

I have chosen to use ATM strategies because it just works cleaner for me. With the standard method I felt that I kept getting out of sync between the strategy’s “virtual” positions and the real positions on the account. I’m sure it’s possible to overcome that problem, but it was a big hassle for me.

With ATM you can still move the stops programmatically, or manually. You can still analyze the unrealized profit, etc. and close them from your code.

The drawback is that you can’t run the backtesting automation on the strategy, but my strategy requires some user discretion anyhow…I don’t like fully automated where it can keep going down a rabbit hole if price action gets wonky.

Only thing I don’t like about ATM is if you flatten the all positions from your code, it disables your strategy automatically. And you have to have pre-made ATM templates that you reference (a different one for each contact size order you might want to submit).